75 Percent of American Drivers Trading in a Hybrid or EV Are Opting for All-Gas Models

Stephen Lacey is the Editor-in-Chief of Greentech Media. He manages a team of writers focused on solar, storage, efficiency, mobility, and grid modernization. He is producer/host of The Energy Gang and Interchange podcasts, two leading interview and analysis shows on the business of energy and cleantech.

New York Times: Falling Gas Prices Are Driving Consumers Back to Bigger Vehicles

The single most effective action that most Americans can take to help reduce the dangerous emissions that cause climate change? Buy a more fuel-efficient car.

But consumers are heading in the opposite direction. They have rekindled their love for bigger cars, pickups and sport utility vehicles, favoring them over small cars, hybrids and electric vehicles, which are considered crucial to helping slow global warming.

So far this year, nearly 75 percent of the people who have traded in a hybrid or electric car to a dealer have replaced it with an all-gas car, an 18 percent jump from 2015, according to Edmunds.com, a car shopping and research site.

The general counsel to the Nevada Public Utilities Commission is no longer employed by the agency after it was pointed out at a meeting last week that she commented on the net metering policy under review by the panel using a pseudonym on social media.

Carson City resident Fred Voltz, who comments frequently on matters before the commission, said he linked former general counsel Carolyn Tanner to a Twitter account using the name “DixieRaeSparx.”

Voltz said he made the connection via a Google search of a Twitter account and connecting the picture on the account to Tanner’s Facebook page.

Tesla Motors Inc.’s bid to buy the biggest U.S. rooftop solar installer has little to do with selling cars. Rather, it’s about solving two of the biggest problems standing in the way of the next solar boom. And perhaps a good deal more.

When Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk came out last week with his $2.86 billion plan to acquire SolarCity Inc., it was almost universally derided as a risky financial move that threatens to derail the electric car maker at its most critical moment.

That’s undoubtedly true. But in the dozens of analyst notes and news stories that picked apart the deal, there’s been little attention paid to what we’ll call “Tesla Solar” and how it could transform the power sector. It’s actually a really big idea.

Tesla now plans to acquire SolarCity and make both companies function under the umbrella of Tesla. Elon Musk made this information public last week. Shareholders and company boards on both sides will still have to approve the merger, but Tesla is wasting no time processing the necessary solar energy trademarks so that Tesla can sell and install solar products.

The day that Tesla announced the SolarCity deal, Ariana Hiscott, Tesla’s trademark and copyright attorney, filed six applications related to solar energy. The trademarks cover cells, modules, sales, installation and repair.

Clean energy and energystoragego together like peanut butter and jelly. But the falling cost of renewable energy threatens to break up this indispensable pair.

According to a new paper in Nature Climate Change, energy storage stands at a critical juncture. For now, energy storage can make wind and solar more profitable, but that may not always be the case.

“If storage isn’t adopted now and renewables’ costs continue to fall, then the added profitability of storage would go away, because at that point it would make more sense to build more solar or wind than it would to install storage,” the study’s co-author, MIT professor of energy studies Jessika Trancik, said in an interview.